Optical network elements of the aforementioned type may generally be used for WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) network implementations, where data is e.g. transmitted via a basically passive optical network, PON, employing wavelength division multiplex techniques for increasing the transmission bandwidth that is available per optical fiber link.
Especially when operating an optical network element within a WDM system, it is very important to ensure that a transmission wavelength used by said optical network element precisely matches a specific WDM channel assigned for respective transmissions in order to avoid interference with other adjacent WDM channels.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to improve a method of operating an optical network element and an optical network element in order to enable a precise matching of at least one transmission wavelength used by said optical network element for transmissions to a further optical network element, particularly on a respective WDM channel.